At present, many workers fail to take up valuable pension benefits because they do not make an application to join their employer's scheme. In order to overcome this and encourage workers to save money for retirement the Government has introduced legislation where every employer must automatically enrol workers into a workplace pension scheme. This is called ‘automatic enrolment’.

More than half of people in the UK either haven't been saving at all for their retirement or they haven't been saving nearly enough to give them the standard of living they hope for when they retire.

At present, many workers fail to take up valuable pension benefits because they do not make an application to join their employer's scheme. 

In order to overcome this and encourage workers to save money for retirement the Government has introduced legislation where every employer must automatically enrol workers into a workplace pension scheme if they:

  • are aged between 22 and State Pension age
  • earn at least £10,000 a year
  • work in the UK

This is called ‘automatic enrolment’ and started at the beginning of October 2012 with staff who work for the biggest businesses, with others being signed up over the following six years.

The date when the law comes into effect for your company is known as your "staging date". To find out your staging date go to this link and enter your PAYE Reference.

Your employer will be in touch around the time that they have to start automatically enrolling their workers and will explain in writing exactly how automatic enrolment will affect you.

If you’re being automatically enrolled you don’t need to do anything, unless you want to opt out. Your employer will have to make at least the minimum required contributions into your pension. You will usually have to pay in too – your contributions will be automatically taken from your pay packet.

From April 2018 pension deductions for auto-enrolled pensions will increase to 2.4% of pay. This will increase to 4% in 2019.

If you aren’t eligible for automatic enrolment, then it’s up to you to decide on the next steps.

If you want to join a workplace pension scheme, you will have to tell your employer so and they cannot  refuse your request.

To check whether you are eligible for automatic enrolment click here.

For an overview of Workplace Pensions follow this link.

To find out what saving into a workplace pension means for your financial situation and to calculate your workplace pension contribution. follow ths link.

In order to ensure that all individuals and companies have a Pension scheme readily available to them the Government has set-up the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) - for more information see our NEST section.

For more information Automatic Enrolment click on the appropriate links below:

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